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Welcome back to our latest currency report. We would like to say this turned out to be an encouraging week, but for the most part it was the exact opposite. Let’s see what happened and how.

An overview of the currency markets for July 9th – July 13th, 2018

The British pound began the week on 1.3233 against the US dollar, but we had little indication of where it would go next. The answer was up – at least to start with – as it improved to 1.3344 by Monday evening. It then dipped to 1.3259 the following day, before rising once more to hit 1.3262 on Wednesday. Unfortunately, from then on, we saw a dip in form that meant the pound finished the week on a disappointing 1.3157.

We were hoping for better against the euro, and we did at least get off to a good start. We opened on 1.1287 before progressing well over the first two days, rising to 1.1320 by Tuesday evening. You could sense a fall coming on, but while the pound did regress to 1.1301 on Wednesday, there was another rise the following day. From 1.1329 on Thursday to a closing rate of 1.1300 on Friday, we had done enough to score a reasonable rise over the whole week.

It was clear there would not be a steady rise over five days against any currency – not least the Hong Kong dollar. Here, we began trading on 10.385 before perking up to 10.473 at the end of that day. Unfortunately, that would be the best exchange rate we would manage all week. A drop to 10.406 the next day meant that even a marginal rise to 10.410 on Wednesday didn’t count for much. After that, it was two falls in a row to close out the week. That was disappointing, to say the least. It also meant there was a closing rate of 10.327 against the Hong Kong dollar – clearly far less than we had started with, which was a shame.

Next, we move on to see whether we could improve against the New Zealand dollar. We opened the week here on 1.9398 and soon moved ahead to 1.9466 on day one. A Tuesday dip then ensued, but it was not enough to knock us back too far – only to 1.9457. Two far better days then followed, which meant we ended up progressing to a healthier 1.9532 by Thursday night. Even a small drop to 1.9528 could not remove the huge leap forward we had taken by then.

So, would we get a similarly good result against the Australian dollar? We opened the week’s trading on 1.7844 here, but the first two days certainly did not go the way we would have liked them to. We dipped – albeit gently – to 1.7816 by Tuesday evening. The one shining piece of good news for the week, as it turned out, was on Wednesday, when the pound managed to edge ahead to 1.7934. That may have looked promising, but the remaining two days were not. Instead, we dropped to a lower rate of 1.7814 this week. Disappointing.

Notable events in the world of currency

A slight dip in form against the Canadian dollar

This could have been worse than it was, with only a slight drop from 1.7379 to 1.7356 in store this time around.

Better news against the Swiss franc

Here, we managed to improve our standing. From an opening rate of 1.3131, we ended up rising to 1.3226 by Friday night.

Doing well against the Icelandic krona

With two strong days to begin the week, the pound rose from 141.317 to 141.954 by Tuesday night. We couldn’t hang onto that, but we did finish on 141.488 by Friday night.

So, there were bright spots in a week that was not always the most successful for the British pound. Will those bright spots get bigger for next week? We shall be here to find out and to bring you the answers.